1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bathing apparatus that combines a wheel chair with a door-equipped bathing tub to enable a disabled or aged person to take hygienic bathing in a sitting position on the wheel chair.
2. Technical Background
Regular bath tubs are open-top box type units, making it difficult for a physically disabled or aged to bathe because it is necessary for the bather to step over a side wall to get inside the bath tub.
To make it easier for the physically disabled or the aged to take a bath, a door-equipped bathing unit described below has been developed which combines a wheel chair and a bath tub having an openable door.
In the bathing unit, a bather sits on a wheel chair which is pushed by a helper along a sloped pathway leading to an open side door of the bathing unit. The helper positions the wheel chair suitably inside the bath tub, and the side door is closed water tight, and the tub is filled with warm water, thus enabling to provide bathing while the bather is seated in the wheel chair.
This type of bathing arrangement presented the following problems.
(1) The arrangement requires that the wheel chair with the bather is transported into the tub by travelling over the sloped pathway, and therefore the caster rollers which have rolled over the floors of the hallway and the bathing room are also placed inside the bath water. This presents a hygienic problem of contaminating the bath water.
(2) After the bathing is over, the wheel chair with the bather must be pushed up the inclined pathway, and because of the free wheeling caster rollers and wetness of the rollers, it is difficult for one helper person to push up the wheel chair in a straight line. This presents a problem that more than one helper person is required to handle the bather.
(3) The bather takes a bath while sitting on the wheel chair, and therefore, the warm water level for a full bath (immersion to the shoulder level) includes the height of the casters. This means that some needless amount of warm water is being used, because of the presence of the casters in the bath water.
(4) It is not possible to open and close the side door while the sloped pathway is in its loading/unloading position, because of the mechanical interference of the door bottom with the inclined pathway. Therefore, for each opening or closing of the door for a bathing occasion, the pathway must be separated away or lowered from the tub. This presents a problem that the bathing operation is cumbersome.